The school year is coming to a close, which means final report cards are coming out soon! This also means that you will probably be getting a lot of questions from parents who want their children to improve their Spanish. Below is a FAQ resource page for Spanish enrichment that I link to my final report card comments to help parents and students continue to practice Spanish over the summer. Feel free to use it, too! Q: We speak Spanish at home, but my child never wants to. How can I motivate them? What kind of enrichment can they do at home? A: This is VERY common! My first piece of advice: Do ..read more

Teaching foods in Spanish is always a hit in my Spanish classes! After all, who doesn’t love to eat? Students will enjoy talking about what they like to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and where they like to eat out. It’s also a great way to integrate cultural learning as each Spanish-speaking country has its own traditional dishes. I teach my food unit over seven weeks in alignment with the textbook Así Se Dice Level 1 Chapter 4, but you can use the following strategies and resources in conjunction with any textbook or even without one. This unit includes activities in speaking, listenin ..read more

Students love to talk about themselves, especially about their families. It’s a great topic to start with when teaching Spanish to beginners. It’s also very useful because we often talk about our families when meeting someone for the first time. So, if you’re looking for some fun ways to teach about family in Spanish, keep reading! I have created a unit plan that goes along with Así se dice, Level 1, Chapter 2 that combines family with rooms of the house. However, you can still teach this unit without the book as a 3-week unit by itself or along with the rooms of the house as a 6-week unit. He ..read more

Can you think of anything kids love more than talking about their likes and dislikes?  Teaching the Spanish verb gustar is something you will want to teach as soon as possible!  First, consider passively teaching Me gusta and No me gusta during the first week of school and then revisiting the phrases during each unit throughout the year for lots of repetition. How to Introduce Gustar On Day One, post a slide on the board with these statements: Next, pass out a list of likes with some cognates like this one: Then ask students to pick 1-2 things they like. Start by modeling:  ..read more

One way to spark students’ interest in the Spanish language and culture is through the geography of the Spanish-speaking countries. But how do you teach this topic and still use 90% Spanish language? Make the geography lesson a comprehensible vocabulary lesson! Many geographic terms are cognates in Spanish, so students can read about geography and learn new words at the same time! Not sure you have time to add one more thing to your already full lesson plans? Why not add it to your daily warm-up routines? Some teachers have a daily theme for their warm-ups: música miércoles, baila viernes, et ..read more

Parts of the body in Spanish is a necessary topic for every beginning Spanish class. For example, if you’re ever sick or injured in a Spanish-speaking country, you’ll need to tell a doctor what’s wrong. This topic is also fun and easy to teach since students carry the target vocabulary on their own bodies! So, if you’re looking for some fresh ways to teach body parts in Spanish, here are 5 fun, low-prep activities you can do tomorrow! Activities for teaching parts of the body in Spanish Games and Songs Play the game, “Simon Dice” or act out the song, “Cabeza, Hombros, Rodillas, Dedos de Pie ..read more

Do you teach on a rotating block schedule and find it hard to stay organized? Maybe you are like me and have a 6 day rotation of classes. You always have a team meeting on C days, but C day is never the same day each week! You really want to put all of your meetings into your calendar but Outlook and Google Calendars only allow you to make repeating appointments based on a 5 day work week! “Every C Day” is not an option! Here is your work-around. The first step is to create a Google or Excel spreadsheet with your rotation schedule. Your front office usually does this, so ask if they can share ..read more

Are you looking for ways to connect with your students and build community during the first week of class? Do you want to get to know your students, but also set the expectation of “Spanish only” from the start? Here are 5 games that accomplish both of those objectives! 1. ¡Corre, corre! Students form a circle with one person in the middle. The middle person makes a true statement about themselves, not related to anything physically obvious.   Examples: Me gustan los Cubs. (I like the Cubs.) No me gusta la música country. ( I don’t like country music.) Tengo 2 perros. (I have 2 dogs.) M ..read more

Middle school Spanish students are still learning the habits of writing in English, so it’s really important that we provide them with tools to write in Spanish. This can include providing sentence starters, word walls, or graphic organizers. In my classroom, students write about their weekend as part of Calendar Talk. For the first month, it’s ok for them to write in basic sentences: I watched TV. I ate pizza. I saw my friends. I played baseball. At this stage, they are building their confidence as writers in Spanish. Ask students to write for the full five minutes and then call on volunteer ..read more

Are you about to start a new job but don’t have any curriculum? How do you know what to teach to your first year Spanish students? Over the years I have learned that Spanish departments fall into one of two camps: mandated textbook or no Spanish curriculum at all. Although I technically had a book to use, I supplemented almost everything. By the time I was done, my students never even knew we had a book! They never even saw a book! I used the vocabulary and grammar concepts from the book so that my students would be prepared to move on to another teacher, but I jazzed it up as much as possible ..read more